Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

More episodes from the life and travels of one of our most celebrated travel writers.

This latest book demonstrates exactly why Newby has become a national treasure - his love of the unknown, the unusual and the totally absurd, combined with his sharp observation and glorious wit, are here for both his loyal audience and new admirers to relish.

Like this book, Newby's life has been episodic, a string of situations into which he has thrown himself with verve, humour and fortitude. With pieces about England, India, Italy, Yemen, Turkey and Holland, among many other places, Departures and Arrivals will be hailed as another triumph of travel literature.

From Barnes to Beijing, Syria to Shekhavati, Purbeck to Palio, Newby and his most faithful travelling companion and wife, Wanda, never fail to delight and inform.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Readers who considers themselves Anglophiles will find this book both quirky and charming. Best-selling travel writer Newby (A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, A Small Place in Italy) brings a definite British quality to his travel accounts, which true to the title, concentrate on first and last impressions. Whether it be a visit to an opal mining community in Australia or to the Ganges River in India, Newby describes his experiences with a pleasant mixture of humor and insight and remains most attracted to remote sites that offer few amenities. Of course, his most eloquent passages are reserved for his homeland and such topics as his youth in Castelnau Mansions and his married life in Dorset. Readers looking for well-crafted stories of off-beat places such as Northern Rajasthan, Zannone Islands, or Souk el Hamadiya (be sure to have a gazetteer nearby as you read this book) will delight in the author's exuberant descriptions of traveling by bicycle, train, canoe, or horseback. Another travel treat from an authoritative voice, this is recommended for medium and large public libraries. Joseph L. Carlson, Lompoc P.L., CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

"Nothing... left such an indelible imprint on our minds as the moment when we discovered that the Ganges was only 40 centimetres deep and that our boat drew 46 centimetres," says Eric Newby (A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush), intrepid world traveler, in Departures & Arrivals. From the Palio in Siena, to China's Forbidden City, to Berwick-on-Tweed, Scotland, by bicycle, to crossing Syria by train, to landscaping his own back yard, Newby reaches back over the last 50-odd years in these recollections that combine old-school travelogue with self-deprecating humor. With wife and travel companion, Wanda, at his side, Newby dispenses insight into the human fascination with foreign adventure. Photos. ( May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

A genial, amusing, and instructive collection of essays by the veteran English travel writer. Newby’s collection, roughly chronological, begins in 1924 (when Newby was five) with a wistful meditation on his boyhood neighborhood (near Hammersmith Bridge) that featured a long street with a slight bend. The volume ends at home, as well, with a love song to the house in southern England, where he and his indefatigable traveling companion and wife, Wanda, lived from 1977 to 1996. (His account of his battles with moles, badgers, and deer is an adornment.) In between these homey ruminations are descriptions of places and experiences that range from wild to weird, from near to far, from funny to feckless. Among the latter: When he was 72, Newby traveled by bicycle along the meridian Two Degrees West, which slices through England. Employing the gentle exaggeration and self-deprecation that are his forte, he tells about having to stop for dozens of tire repairs because English farmers have strewn the towpaths with the thorny trimmings from their hedges. Perhaps the weirdest detail: horse racers in the Palio (an event in Siena, Italy) flog both their mounts and one another with special whips fashioned from the dried penises of calves. Newby delights in undercutting his own achievements. Once he is on a cycling trip around Holland on an expensive touring bicycle. “From time to time,” he writes, “we were overtaken by elderly Dutch ladies, some of them in national garb and mounted on bicycles that looked like two harps welded together.” Neither does he neglect the ominous. Kurds with rifles guard an important site in Anatolia. And in a nearly abandoned village in southern Italy: “We saw a doll impaled with a nail on a tree, which was rather disturbing, and a solitary tethered lamb, guarded by a ferocious tethered dog.” Newby has the usual traveler-troubles: forgotten luggage, ill-natured automobiles, noisy hotel neighbors, wrong turns, and unsavory food. Full of odd and quiet moments, telling detail, wit, and wisdom. (16 pp. b&w photos)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Eric Newby was born in London in 1919 and educated at St Paul's School. During the Second World War he served in the Black Watch and Special Boat Section, and was a prisoner of war from 1942-5. For many years he was travel editor of the Observer. He is the author of many travel books, including What the Traveller Saw and A Small Place in Italy.